I Will Follow You If You Let Me Lead
by Zagzagael
Summary: S1. I love the wide-open possibilities of S1 - S3. So, in keeping with simpler times, here's a How It Might Happen Fic. Sam/Dean and a librarian investigate a ghost who is killing for love.
1. Chapter 1

They were exhausted and cold and somewhat disoriented by the hunt that had lasted exactly thirty-two and a half hours from start to salt and burn finish. It was the earliest morning hour, the time between days, and the motel room felt more like home and less like impersonal train station and maybe it was that feeling, or listening to the water sluicing over Dean's body in the shower behind the closed bathroom door, or perhaps it was the strange long moment in the cemetery when he had glanced across the open grave, to see Dean lifting effortlessly his thousand thousandth shovel full of desecrated earth over his shoulder - with grace and strength and a wicked movement of upper and lower arm, the long muscles flexing down the length of his spine outlined beneath his t-shirt - and toss it up and onto the lip a foot above his head, that somehow set fire to what was left of the map inside his skull, burning it to ash.

He suddenly knew this was real, he had been dreading it, anticipating it, and wondering if he was still lost by it. Five years gone, following starlight. Now he had been left to try to find the way. A new starlit path. His way, their way.

With two quick exhales, he lowered his body to the motel double, feet on the floor, knees splayed comfortably, and replayed that small bit of Dean behind his closed eyes, seconds within a minute out of the hours and days and weeks and months of their two conjoined lifetimes. Something in the light or lack of, something in the set of Dean's face, his shoulders, the skin of his neck shaved clean, something in the shovel, the grave, the lonely cemetery, the blisters forming on his own hands and feeling sympathetic to what could only be the same on his brother's palms. Something more intangible. Something in the knowing, the understanding, the thicker than water truth, their DNA, and more, their lives stranded and coiled and defining the very essence of who they were. Something that wasn't him and wasn't Dean, but a place between them. A place like an open pathway, beckoning and Sam felt overcome. Suddenly overcome.

He toed off his boots, scrabbled backwards up the bed and rolled into the covers, dragging the material over himself, asleep before he even really could think of sleep.

***

_Up on his splayed knees, thighs solidly under Dean's ass, gripping his brother tight and hard fingers around the hips, hauling him closer. Closer even. Even. Closer. The burn as his blistered hands tore and wept clear fluid, still he pulled Dean against him, he slid his hands down the length of his spread thighs, fingers pressing into the underside of his knees and he groaned. He reached forward again, between their bodies, grasping for both their cocks, encircling them with a firm and insistent gentleness and Dean moaned his name and he pulled his gaze up and looked at his brother's face, eyes half-lidded, head racking into the pillow. His heart surged crazily at the sight of his naked body, the sweated chest, shoulders. Dean's arms thrown wide, crucified for love, fisting the covers, holding on desperately. Overcome, the heated blood, his heart beating out Dean's name, he leaned down cupped the face he recognized more than his own in the glass, thumbs circling into the corners of Dean's beautiful lips, he bent into him and kissed him full and hard, back coiling, driving his hips against Dean, needing something more, pushing himself upwards with the strong muscles in his thighs, reaching down with one hand, holding Dean's face still with the other, he guided himself home and Dean's name tore out of his throat, through his lips. Dean!_

***

Sam came awake instantly, the name of his brother caught between his teeth. He was shaking and with a spinning vertigo, realized it was the aftershocks of orgasm. His hips instinctively jacking into the mattress and Christ he still had his jeans on. He twisted his head on the pillow, eyes narrowed at the other bed and there was no movement there, he held his breath and listened to Dean's rhythmical, soft snoring. He sighed in gratitude for that at least, but his boxers and jeans were going to be an issue.

He rolled over onto his back, a forearm across his eyes. With deep, held breaths he brought his heart rate back to normal, his mind skirting tentatively around the images from his dream now seared into the forefront of his brain; Dean on his back, Dean naked, Dean's throbbing erection, Dean's mouth, and in the dream grabbing his own cock, guiding himself inside his brother's body. He moaned softly and shook his head. It had been years since he'd dreamed of Dean and apparently he had grown into a bonafide sexual creature during that dry dreaming time, because he had never dreamt anything remotely as graphic. And more disturbingly, he hadn't come in his sleep since the year he began to shave.

He lay awake, dawn still an hour or two below the horizon, before finally falling back into a dreamless sleep; smiling at the thought that he could ever top Dean.

***

He was shoving the last of his clean clothes back into the duffel, watching out of the corners of his eyes at Dean doing the same. 24 hour Laundromat and the sun up just one hour. The dream was still coursing through his body like a drug or the vestiges of a hangover. He was unsteady on his feet and concentration was elusive. Dean was interjecting into his thoughts every few minutes with observations, small statements, nothing really important and instead of hearing the words, he chose to listen to the cadence of his brother's voice, the inflection, trying to discern meaning without participating.

They were standing at the open trunk of the Impala, discussing breakfast options, Dean throwing him a strange look.

"You okay, Sammy?"

Sam had to close his eyes, turn his face away, at the sound of his name in Dean's mouth.

"Sam?"

He nodded, looking into the green eyes, blushing. "Yeah, fine. Actually, maybe just a little off. I might have caught that cold Bobby seemed to have last week."

"We'll get you some orange juice."

"Yeah, sounds good."

***

"A haunted library?" Dean rolled his eyes, took another bite of his Egg McMuffin and swallowed a gulp of black coffee, all at the same time. "Dude, you are making that up."

Sam shook his head, sipping at a 32 ounce plastic bottle of pulped orange juice, lip turned up the slightest bit at the smell of Dean's breakfast spread out on the front seat of the Impala. "Why would I make that up?"

"The question is why are you looking for jobs in libraries? Why not haunted tittie bars or ghostly micro-breweries? I mean, c'mon, library baddies and all the librarians to go along with it? You're practically wriggling, aren't you? Man you seriously need to get out more."

"The coordinates match an entry in Dad's journal. That's all." A single shoulder shrug and a bite out of his bran muffin.

"Hmph. And why are you eating that, Sammy? A muffin? Just saying the word _muffin_ gives me gas."

Sam ignored the food jibing. "Dean, this is a job. Let's get on the road and check it out. And for all we know, the librarians could be the Swedish Bikini sister team."

Dean snorted, reached over and balled up his breakfast wax papers, stuffed them all into the bag and tossed it over his shoulder into the back seat. "Fat chance."

Sam smiled, looking down at his lap, small paper bag spread flat, bran muffin, balanced cup of coffee and definite thoughts of his brother.

***

On the road. Again. Impala burning up miles, heading towards a new job. It felt good to be moving, putting hours and an entire half a state between him and the dream. His skin still felt hot, his thoughts simmering. It wasn't as though he hadn't known before, he had just never looked the thing straight in the face, stared into the eyes of it, but it had been surfacing with insistence and regularity and it was cooking him from the inside out.

He settled himself shotgun, creaking his body down into the leather worn comfortable to the shape and size of him. He threw a long arm up along the back of the bench seat, looking pointedly out his own window, and teased himself with how close his fingertips were to Dean's nape. He closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the intensity of his brother's energy crackling across the mere inches, into his fingerbones, into his veins, jolting up his arm and settling into a syncopated rhythm inside his heart. _Dean, Dean, Dean._

It had been ten months since Dean had materialized out of the shadows, dusting away the small handful of years they spent apart, climbing up and out of the longing and sadness Sam kept tamped down inside himself, appearing as though called in his kitchen. All the strength, the glorious masculinity of him, standing right there on the living room carpet, as if it had always been just that easy. All along. And the complicated origami of Sam's life unfolded, he felt it become something else, an older shape; the familiar folds and creases, the achingly irrefutable pattern of it. He had stood stunned at the immensity of his feelings. Even with Jess walking out of the bedroom door, he knew he was already gone.

***

"Oh, man, it's one of the Carnegie Libraries." Sam whistled appreciatively under his breath.

"Not many of those left, huh?" Dean was finishing off a breakfast burrito.

"No, and not ones that are still being used as libraries. They either get demolished or the town fathers build crappy new libraries and dump these abandoned buildings on community associations and non-profits who can't possibly deal with the upkeep and then they get demolished. It's pretty insidious."

Dean tilted his head at that, nodding. "Insidious, huh."

The Impala was parked across the street from the granite building.

They were in what Sam considered Small Town America in all her patriotic 1950's glory. No parking meters on the narrow street, but plenty of towering birch and elm trees standing stalwart guard, cracked sidewalks zigzagging quietly in front of lines of sagging post WWII houses. Two-story brick warehouses and a corner gasoline station with an actual pump jockey.

Dean looked up and then back down the small street. "This place is like the North Dakota Lake Woebegone."

Sam laughed. "Definitely, but hey, I got Internet at the coffee shop."

"True, but that was on the edge of town. This, this is what actually lies beneath the Starbucks, the Burger King and the Walmart. The dying heart of Dinkwater, USA." He pulled a face. "So, what's the story? Teens getting offed if they check out "The Joy of Sex"? Housewives meeting untimely ends with overdue copies of "The Story of O" in their purses?"

"Dean."

"Just asking."

"No, it's not like that. Apparently, librarians leap to their death from the roof. Third one jumped last week and she's currently on life support. And the first one jumped in 1909, the year the library opened."

"Fantastic." Dean suddenly sounded very tired.

"Yeah." Sam nodded agreement, a long sidelong glance at his brother.

"And the only business lead is Dad's journal? Maybe it's just a job risk."

"Maybe." Sam smiled despite himself. "I think there's something here. That first jumper? Three months to the day after a Sheriff's deputy chased a guy off the roof. To his death"

Dean leaned over and popped the latch on the glove box. With a lazy forearm on Sam's thigh, he rifled through IDs. Beside him, Sam held his breath then finally, moved his leg out from under the wicked weight of Dean's arm. "Uh, do you mind?"

"FBI?" Dean asked, grabbing for the badges.

"We're not suited up."

"It's still early. Everyone in this town is having a glass of freshly-squeezed OJ and the morning paper. Believe me. Let's find a motel and change."

***

Sam ran a lint brush down the long length of his thigh, then turned and tried to reach for the back of his trouser leg.

"Here." Dean grabbed for the brush.

"I got it." But his brother was quicker.

With a hand fast on the curve of his haunch, Dean hunkered down behind Sam and began running the brush up the outside of his thigh. "I knew that old broad's couch was bad news, Sammy. That's why you didn't see me sitting down. Hold still."

Sam could feel the heat of Dean's fingers through the trousers, closed his eyes briefly, moving imperceptibly into the span of Dean's palm. "Yeah, well. We need to drop both these suits off at a cleaner sooner than later."

The brush was rolled back up the inside of his thigh; Dean was huffing a small laugh, and then running it across Sam's ass. Sam bit the inside of his cheek and floundered his hand back, Dean avoided him.

Dean stood and twisted himself in front of Sam, one hand anchoring him in the middle of his chest, the other rolling the brush down the broad reach of Sam's shoulder. "You look good, bro. Fine as wine." Smiling through the joking compliment.

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Thanks. Um, you too. Here." He stepped into Dean's space and efficiently knotted a four-in-hand, tugging it tight, fingers lingering on the collar, brushing against Dean's throat.

"You know it." Dean said, a head tilt as thanks. He held the brush out, peering at it suspiciously. "Sammy, what the hell is this and where did it come from?"

"It's a lint brush. And I bought it."

Dean tossed it onto Sam's bed, muttering under his breath, clocking himself once more in the mirror. "Let's not keep the Swedes waiting, Sam." He laughed loud and long and Sam smiled behind him, following out the door.

***

_Sam steps back, admires his handwork, the wide end of the tie ribboned through his long fingers, thumbs rubbing smoothly against the dark mahogany-coloured silk. Dean's tie perfect._

_He smiles smugly, nodding. "See, I told you. It's a beautiful tie, dude." He gently pats it into place._

_Dean clocks himself in the mirror mounted to the wall over the low dresser, a low whistle. "Sweet."_

_Sam turns towards the glass, watches Dean watch himself. "Absolutely. You needed a good tie, you needed the silk."_

_"Hey, Sammy, can you teach me how to do that?"_

_"I don't mind knotting it for you, Dean."_

_Dean blushes slightly, a dark auburn beneath his freckled skin. "Yeah, I know. But sometimes it makes me feel like a kid. It's something I should know how to do, huh."_

_Sam smiles softly. "Okay, big brother. Here." He steps behind him, hands coming up beneath Dean's arms, quickly and efficiently loosing the knot and springing the ends free. He leans into Dean's back, bends his head low, reaching for both tie ends, then looks up into the mirror, studiously avoiding Dean's eye, turning his head and breathing out against the column of Dean's throat. He feels Dean tense against him and he smiles. "Start with this, the wide end, on your right, and it needs to be about, oh a foot below the narrow end. See?" He tugs both ends straight, smoothes the wide end down, nearly to the belted waistband of Dean's trousers. "Can you eyeball twelve inches?"_

_"Hmph." Dean turns his head, trying to look at him. "Sure." He frowns muttering, "Weird fucken question."_

_Sam nods, still not letting his gaze be caught. "Good." He inhales deeply. "You smell mmmm. Is that Old Spice?"_

_"Sammy. I dunno, its deodorant." Dean turns his head into his left armpit, away from Sam's face and sniffs._

_"Just sayin'. Okay, this is called a four-in-hand and here we go. Cross the wide end over the narrow, turn it back under, and bring it back over again." He moves the wide end methodically. "Now, here's the tricksy part."_

_"Did you just say 'tricksy'?"_

_Sam smirks. "So what if I did? Pay attention. You're holding the wide end, kind of loose, and the narrow end taut. Pull the wide end up and through this loop." With one hand he gently presses Dean's face upwards with the back of his knuckles fitted underneath his jaw, while feeding the tie end beneath the loop with his other hand._

_"I can't see if my head's up like this, Sam."_

_"Shush now. This is the important part." He hooks his index finger loosely into the knot. "Slot the wide tail end all the way down through the knot, keeping your finger in there. Then tighten by sliding it up. To. Just. This. Spot." Sam fans his fingers wide, pulls the knot up, tugs the tie down and straight, letting go and using both hands to arrange and seat the knot at the top of Dean's collar. With a deliberate movement he brings both hands up to the sides of Dean's face, cupping him along his jaw line, manoeuvring his head back down, holding him still. Sam looks into the mirror, beneath his lashes, leaning his brother forward until Dean has to catch himself, hands on the edge of the dresser. Still holding his face, their gazes locked in the glass, Sam brings his mouth to a point just below Dean's ear. "Oh, Dean," he whispers and his voice is husky with ... _

***

"You still with me, Sam?" Dean asked, throwing the Impala into park and keying off the engine.

"Yeah, sorry. Wool-gathering, I guess." He sat up, looking across to the library. A man was standing on the wide, granite steps, smoking, and one of the double glass doors was propped open. "We're here."

"Wool gathering? What the ... never mind. Yeah, Little Bo Peep, we're here."

Sam watched him climb out of the car, blushed to himself when Dean reached a quick hand up to his tie knot. He joined him, snapping his cuffs. "Let's do this."

The library air was stale and smelled of mildew. Hence the propped door, Sam thought. A large circular desk effectively blocked patrons at the front doors. Two blue-haired pensioners were standing and talking behind it.

Dean shot him a venomous look and Sam could only shrug helplessly. Dean mouthed, "Swedish bikini team my ass" and then they were being addressed.

Sam let Dean take over; he was better at the suited shtick and really could charm the pants off any female, regardless of age. Letting his gaze run quickly over the room they were in, beginning in the corner, he got his bearings, searching out shadows and generally getting a feel for the building.

"Oh, no, Agent Plant, no one was here the night that poor Jeanette...Well, you know. Her room-mate, Dana Jenson, is the children's librarian. You might want to talk with her, but I can't imagine why the FBI would be interested in such a sad, personal thing." Sam watched as both older women gave Dean a disapproving look. "Why don't you two young men go on through that doorway, she'll be back there. Can I bring you both a cup of coffee?"

"Not necessary. Thank you." Dean turned to him. "Sam, this way."

Dean shouldered up against him, hissing, "This place is like a freakin' convent, dude. Let's go talk to Sister Jenson. I pick the next job, got it?"

Sam shouldered Dean back.

Through the doorway, Sam running a quick hand over the faux Roman column framing the entrance and they found themselves in a warm corner of the building. Walls bright with poster board and a huge construction paper mural of an Elm tree dropping leaves, each one bearing a child's name. Short stacks of picture books corralled an oversized librarian's desk. In front of the desk, a woman was bending over, retrieving a forgotten book off the floor and Dean raised an appreciative eyebrow at Sam. Although the view was good, Sam still rolled his eyes. But she straightened and turned and he had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling. She was beautiful. And young. Tall and slim, long dark hair, huge brown eyes and a ready smile.

"Hello?" she asked.

"You're a librarian?" Dean spluttered.

She frowned, then her brow smoothed and she offered him a cheeky, flirty smile. "That's right. I'm a librarian. Can I help you find a book? Um....religious studies is over there, or I can point you in the direction of the few legal texts we have?"

Dean scowled at her and both he and Sam fished out their IDs, flashing her with the badges and snapping them shut as she leaned in closer.

"Oh." She became serious. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry, Agent..."

Dean waved an impatient hand. "No harm done. But I don't believe we look like either missionaries or lawyers." He shot an irritated glance at Sam who just shrugged, dimples showing. "Are you Dana Jenson?"

She nodded, turned to the desk and placed the book on it. Smoothing a hand down the front of her skirt. "I am. How can I help you?"

Sam spoke up. "We understand that Jeanette Smith is your room-mate."

Her face closed, her expression became deeply guarded and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Sam also noted that the edges of her had become worn and pained. "Yes, she is."

Dean cleared his throat. "We'd like to talk with you about the night of the 17th. What happened. And what you believe happened."

"What I believe happened?" her voice cracked. "I don't know what you mean."

"Do you believe that your room-mate was attempting suicide?"

She looked at him for a long moment, then her gaze flicked over to Sam and he smiled sympathetically. He liked her.

"That's what I was told. Yes."

"Yes? You believe she jumped from the roof of this library?"

"Dean," Sam warned.

Dean ignored him, taking a step closer to the woman. "Why would she do that?"

Another long silence. "I don't know," she whispered. She covered her eyes with a quick hand, taking a deep breath.

"We're sorry," Sam said softly and she nodded.

"Yeah, me, too."

"We know she's in critical condition. Things must be difficult."

"She is. And things are very difficult right now." Her gaze had hardened and the suspicion was written back into her features and something more. Sam wondered if it was fear. "Why is the FBI interested in this? I don't understand that at all. Jeanette's a librarian. We're both pretty new here. We don't really know anyone in this town, not that there are a lot of people to know." She paused, looking down at her hands, twisting several silver rings on her fingers. "You know, she had big dreams, bigger than this place, this job. She said she was just going to get some experience, pad her CV." Sam nodded, Dean looked confused. "And then she was going to apply to a research library in Detroit."

Dean turned to Sam and spoke in a low voice. "She doesn't know about the history."

"What history," she interrupted. "What don't I know? Jeanette's history?"

Sam sighed. "It's Dana?" She nodded. "Dana, it's like this. Jeanette is the third woman to fall from the roof of this library. In total, four people have fallen from the roof and three have died as a result. A man, who was being pursued by a Sheriff's deputy, fell to his death the year the library opened. A few months after that, a woman fell and died and she was a librarian here. I know, it's really unbelievable. Then, about forty-five years ago, another woman fell," he nodded, "a librarian."

"It's a two-story building," she whispered.

Dean smiled. "You'd think."

"I didn't know about all of that." Her voice was quiet. "Why hasn't someone said anything, why wasn't that in the papers?"

"They might not remember. Forty-five years is a long time."

She grimaced. "Believe me, in this town, they remember details like that. They know if I go out for breakfast or dinner or miss a day of work." She mock-shivered. "But, still, something isn't adding up. I don't know what this would have to do, directly, with Jeanette." She held up a hand. "Yes, I can see there might be some kind of strange connection, but no one else seems to be tying that together. How could those earlier deaths have anything to do with something that happened last week?"

"It's a good question," Sam agreed.

"Are you sure it's not just a spooky coincidence?"

Suddenly she seemed too bold, too quick to divert and joke, her voice shaky around the edges of it. Sam schooled his face into a passive seriousness. "You know something, don't you, Dana? You know that this isn't a spooky coincidence."

She paled.

Dean whistled low under his breath. "Well played, Sammy." He turned to her. "You can tell us, Dana. No matter how crazy it sounds, you need to tell us what you know."


	2. Chapter 2

She covered her face with both hands and shook her head. They waited her out, Dean looking across at Sam and Sam looking back. Finally, she spoke. "Okay. Everyone is saying that Jeanette jumped, that she was trying to kill herself, that she had no emotional support system," she paused and her eyes grew hard beneath her unshed tears.

"No friends or family?" Sam asked.

She shook her head. "That's offensive, see, I thought we were friends. Yes, we've only been room-mates for about four months, but she did have _emotional support_. We hung out together, a lot. We were confidantes. She wasn't depressed."

"Moving to a new place can leave some people unanchored." Sam's voice was kind, prompting.

"It wasn't like that."

"And what about her family?" Dean asked.

"She doesn't have any. She said she was a late-in-life baby, an only child, and both her parents have passed on."

"That's gotta be lonely."

She gave him a hard look. "Lonely enough to kill yourself?"

"No. Lonely enough to make some really bad choices when you're given them."

"So, Dana," Sam interjected. "Now you're saying that you don't believe she did jump intending to kill herself. What do you really think?"

"I know, I know. This is crazy, huh. No one has really asked me anything. Certainly not what I think. I'm frankly stunned to be talking to the FBI right now. Everyone has told me what happened and why, but it just doesn't make sense. I don't know. I want to believe that I would have seen something like this coming, I would have known, you know. I don't know what happened."

"But you know that something strange was going on?"

Her eyes grew huge. "Yes," she whispered.

"Okay. Thank you. We're going to look around here a bit, and we're going to go down to the hospital, too. Can we meet you somewhere after work and you can tell us what you know, what you think?"

She nodded, wiping her fingertips beneath her eyes.

"Can we meet you at your place?" Dean asked.

"Yes, here," she leaned over the desk and wrote out her address on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. "6:00."

***

Sam followed Dean up to the second floor. He marveled at the authoritative way his brother filled out the cheap suit. The perfectly proportioned male form of him adding an aggressive kind of elegance to the cut and fabric which was otherwise devoid of any class or character. He briefly wondered what sort of figure he himself cut and buried his tongue deep behind his top teeth to keep from asking Dean's opinion. He flirted with the wild idea of somehow in some way purchasing a pashmina Huntsman for Dean. Maxing out a credit card, one time only use...he'd have to apply for it with a Russian moniker, make the deal more legitimate.

***

_Himalayan cashmere, dark blue with a tantalizing soft grey sheen to it, more than an ideal colour accompaniment to green eyes, warm ginger highlights in his hair. Auburn freckles smudged across the perfect plane of cheekbones, down the back of his cleanly shaven neck and, Sam knew, constellated across the strong shoulders, dipping like stars beneath the spur of his shoulder blades, smoothing out along the thick muscles beside the well of his spine, fading into warm browned skin along his waist, flesh and muscle wrapping tight around the flare of his hips._

_The suit bespoke, cut to fit with exquisite precision. A Vory V Zakone boss would be brought to his knees, wrestled to the ground by envy for the suit. The single-breasted fit, surgeon's cuffs undone revealing the bones of his wrist, masculine and elegant, the square-tipped fingers hitching Sam's breath, catching inside his lungs. Dean's hands so gloriously beautiful._

_Dean is stepping above him, in front of him, Sam behind, he reaches up and out for his brother. His brother wearing this suit. This. Suit. Sam's hands snake up beneath the vented coat, fingers reaching down and catching in the low-slung waistband, feeling the jut of Dean's hip bones right where the braces button. Just there. Dean pauses on the stairs, Sam wonders if the scorching heat he's holding inside his hands is melting through the pashmina, the silk underwear, the flesh and bone and blood and sinew. And suddenly it is dark, a blue moon hangs huge and vibrant in a window set high into the stairwell._

_Dean pauses in the shaft of moonlight and Sam presses his advantage, pulls him back towards him, feels the grace with which he steps backwards down one stair, and turns, pressing his shoulders against the wall, metal banister railing catching him right across the ass, his hands holding on there, tight. And Sam has let go now, quivering one step below and is still almost taller, he runs both hands inside Dean's jacket, watching his face, his eyes are closed. He slides free the left-over-right button, laughing to think that both he and Dean depend upon this heraldic sword cut, they are armed, always armed. And yes, just there, Dean's got a shoulder holster filled with blue death and Sam runs a quick thumb up and under the tactical gear, tapping out a beat on Dean's ribs right over his heart._

_He steps up, onto the same stair and brings both hands up to cup and cradle, hold and cherish his brother's face, between his palms. His hands are shaking, but his fingers are so gentle that Dean just nods and yes yes yes._

_Sam reaches in, reaches towards this man, with his mouth, his heart, he kisses him. And Dean kisses him back. Mine mine this this. Sam lets go, runs his open hands down the front of the decadent fabric of the suit, grasps the lapels in both fists and then does not let go. Cannot let go._

***

He sighed and Dean turned to look at him over his shoulder. Sam shook his head. Nothing, nothing.

"What?" Dean asked as they stopped at the top of the stairs.

"I dunno. I just feel weird about Dana believing we really are Feds. You know."

"Whatever. This place gives me the creeps, even without the spook."

The second floor was small, tucked in under the four eaves of the roofline. Completely silent, devoid of people, musty, damp air, threadbare carpeting, rows and rows of stacks, shelves sagging beneath the weight of distinctly mildewing and forgotten tomes.

"It reminds me of the top floor of one of the law libraries at Stanford," Sam said, adjusting his whisper to normal decibel level. "I used to hang out there, study. No one up there but me. Me and the books."

"That right?"

Sam turned to face him. "That's right. Me, the books, and my fucked up memories. Good times. Better?"

Dean closed his eyes. "Don't."

Sam smiled sadly to himself and cleared his throat. "Let's find the stairs to the roof. Can't be too hard." He looked around the windowless room, walking towards one side. "It's here." He jiggled the locked doorknob.

"We could just ask for the key," Dean shrugged.

Quietly and quickly, Sam picked the doorknob lock and both of them took long steps into the small, cramped staircase, a few short metal steps leading up and out onto the roof.

"Not really the first place a jumper would think to say _'goodbye cruel world'_." Dean observed.

Sam smiled and nodded. They walked in opposite directions; the roof was a small square of weathered gravel, a short, decorative wall running the perimeter edges. The height was tolerable to Sam, but he noticed how Dean stayed distinctly closer to the middle of the roof.

"You'd have a heart attack before you hit the sidewalk," Sam said teasingly.

"I don't like heights, okay. But even so, this really isn't something I'd call that high."

"Come over here, then," Sam said, settling his long body down on the wall, legs splayed jauntily in front of him. "Look, Ma, no hands!" He twisted himself back and forth on the wall, laughing.

"Hysterical. I get it. It's high enough to kill." He paused. "If you fall right. Maybe she slipped instead of jumped."

Sam's face got suddenly very serious and his stomach jolted. "Or maybe, Dean, she was pushed. Or thrown."

"That's lovely." Dean shook his head, looking over to the sidewalk, down to the small patch of grass in front of the building. "I think we need to find out about this first guy, the one being chased by the cop."

Sam nodded.

"Well nothing else here." Dean stated. "What've you got?"

Sam was striding the length of one side, peering at the monitor on the EMF reader.

"Definitely some sort of activity. It's faded, but it's there. Could have been from five days ago." He looked over at Dean. He pressed the antenna back into the receiver and pocketed the device. "Hospital?"

***

"That is terrible," Dean whispered, Sam beside him. The body in the bed was as still as death but surrounded by machines holding her dying at bay. "Damn."

"Can't die, and certainly can't live like that." Sam's voice was pitched low. "I don't know. Yeah, it's terrible." He took a long, shuddering breath. "Dean? You wouldn't..."

He was interrupted by a nurse walking into the room. "Agent Halford, here are her effects. If you would just sign this." She handed Dean a plastic bag and a clipboard.

He scribbled across the bottom of the form. "Thanks."

"Is she going to..." Sam's voice was still low and he cleared his throat and began again. "I mean, how long can she survive like this?"

A look of compassion flashed across the nurse's face before being professionally masked. "On life support? She could very well live for years. She'll become the state's ward, as you know, and at that time..." She shrugged, reaching out and tucking the thin hospital sheet down along the side of the body in the bed.

Dean was peeking into the bag, one foot tapping restlessly, ready to go. Sam looked back down at the ruined face, the broken body, and wondered about the battlefield where life and death waged their eternal war.

***

"What in hell...." Dean raked a hand through the small pile of bloody clothes, a pair of battered pumps, spread out on the hood of the Impala and fished out a small bag. He ripped open the stapled plastic and poured a necklace into his palm. He whistled low. Sam tore his gaze away from the detritus of Jeanette's clothing to look.

Between thumb and forefinger, Dean held up a weathered and patina-ed gold chain, an antique locket swinging ominously from it. Sam reached out, catching the locket and gently pressed it open with a thumbnail. It lay butterflied in his hand; inside, a tintype of a man, opposite, on the other half, a lock of brown hair twisted beneath glass.


	3. Chapter 3

A window seat booth. Sam was splitting his attention between outside the diner and inside the diner. Between watching the mid-afternoon laze of the main street drag; a hardware store, a florist, a tiny Newspaper office, and strangely a motorcycle shop, overweight, middle-aged men and women, young, hard-worn mothers and bikers, and one particularly delightful girl child complete with schoolgirl braids and a jump rope. And Dean, thoroughly enjoying a bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries. He did a quick internal check, realized he was actually happy. Content, warm. He was relaxed, and maybe even had a ready smile hidden in the corners of his mouth. He shook his head the smallest bit out of a kind of surprise and wonderment.

"What are you smiling about?" Dean asked, dragging three fries through a lake of ketchup.

"It's a good day. That's all."

"Alright then." Pointing with the soggy fries at the empty bowl. "Is that going to be enough, a cup of soup?"

"It's soup, Dean. Healthy."

"Oh, yeah, soup is healthy, Sam. And oh so filling." He barked out a laugh. "Are you going to go back to the library for research or back to that coffee shop for Internet?"

"I'm thinking," Sam glanced through the glass, across the street, "I'll try that Newspaper. Just not sure about the suit...."

"Dude, you look sharp. Sharper than," Dean floundered and Sam raised an eyebrow, urging him on, "sharper than a really sharp thing."

Sam nodded, sneering his lips up in amusement, and then he laughed. "Sweet."

***

The secretary at the local rag, however, seemed to find Sam, his suit and his final ploy fake ID neither sweet nor sharp.

"At this time, the answer is quite simply no. No, we are not going to give you access to our files, no you may not peruse this paper's archives, index or morgue. Without the proper forms, that is." She was hardcore and Sam could not help but be impressed. She was nearly quivering with a combination of outrage and a protectiveness that rivalled a mother bear separated from her cub. She held up a hand, fake nails, a pearl ring, she was classic spinster and fierce.

"What is it you're working so hard to protect?" he asked softly.

She seemed taken aback. "It's not like that. I need the proper," emphasis on proper, "paperwork to allow you in to our stacks."

"And yet, if I were a highschool journalism student, you would be polite and helpful, wouldn't you, Miss Greer."

"I'm sorry, young man, that you feel I'm being impolite. I'm trying to be as professional and firm with you as I can before I phone the police."

Sam barked out a laugh. "The police? I just showed you my Federal badge."

"Perhaps you did. But you don't have any accompanying paperwork identifying either yourself or this particular casework. I'm sorry, we're all sorry, that this young woman chose this course for her life, but what you're asking, what you're suggesting is preposterous and frankly we will have nothing to do with it voluntarily."

"You do realize that most of your indices are accessible online?"

She smiled grimly. "I think you'll find that none of our archives have been digitized."

Sam wondered why he was pushing her, why he didn't just walk away, knowing he could break back in after hours, but still he flashed his dimples.

She gave him a severe look over the top of her half-spectacles. "Please don't take me for a fool. This sort of personal tragedy tends to bring your kind crawling out of the cracks, nosing through other people's business, small town gossip and hearsay. We don't want any of that here."

"Who are you protecting?"

With a violent and yet impressively restrained movement, she pointed to the door. "Out!"

He tipped his head in compliance. He was on the right track.

***

He and Dean were sitting on the sofa in the front room of Dana and Jeanette's rented bungalow.

"This is really quaint," Sam said, looking around the vintage home, sipping at the coffee she had offered.

She smiled at him, and he wondered why he felt so indulged. "I suppose it is. We wanted to be able to walk to work and we both thought downtown was funky and fun. Rent is way cheap."

Dean sat forward, putting his coffee mug down on the coffee table and Sam knew he would have far preferred a bottle of beer over yet another cup of coffee. "Listen, I'm sure you're a perfectly wonderful girl, and totally interesting, but we've already encountered several, let's say, strange things today, stranger than what we already know to be strange," Dean frowned at the jumble of his own words but held up an apologetic hand to her and continued, "and I'd like to just move past the chit-chat and start talking about your room-mate."

"Okay," Dana said, physically subdued, but with her eyes flashing and the pink tip of her tongue making a quick pass over her bottom lip.

With a sinking realization, Sam looked at her looking at Dean and saw the electricity his brother was generating inside this woman. He shook his head, simultaneously impressed and disheartened at Dean's affect on people. He frowned into his mug before placing it beside his brother's mug and sitting forward in anticipation.

"You said earlier that you do believe there's something strange in all of this. What is it?" Dean's voice was like honey and Sam let it flow into him.

"Mmmm..." she stalled.

They waited and finally Dean leaned back into the cushion, his elbow brushing deeply into Sam's ribs and Sam held himself rigid but pressing slightly back into the pressure. Dean fished the baggie out of his front pocket and pushed it across the table towards her. "What is this, Dana? What is that?"

She reached down for it and in the moment she saw and recognized it, she drew her hand back as though bitten.

"Nope," Dean said, "actually, it's not a snake. It's a locket. Where did it come from? And why was Jeanette wearing it?"

"She was wearing it?" Dana whispered.

Sam interjected. "We don't know that. It was in her personal effects the hospital gave us. What do you know about it?"

"Of course she was wearing it." She began to cry softly. Dean reached down and Dana jumped up from her chair. "Don't touch it!"

Now Dean was on his feet. "Why, Dana? Tell us. Does that locket call him?"

Her eyes were huge and frightened, Sam couldn't discern if she was more frightened by the turn of direction in conversation or the idea of who the locket might call forth. She nodded, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. "Yes."

"Who, Dana? Who is he?"

"I don't know. Someone, something not good." Her hands were trembling and she made two small, tight passes from the living room to the tiled foyer and back. "Jeanette and I found the locket about two weeks ago, in a box in the basement of the library. One of the reasons we both were hired was to help the Library Foundation clear out decades of un-catalogued books and magazines, donated items, which had been piling up in the basement. It's a mess, really, but we've been working steadily on it for months now." She paused, looking at Dean. "And then we got to a section that looked like no one had touched it for just years and there was a box there, it had been donated by the family of a librarian who used to work at the library and that," she looked down at the necklace inside the bag, "that necklace, the locket, was in the box."

"Where is that box now?" Sam asked.

She pulled her lower lip beneath her teeth. "Still there, I'm sure. In the basement."

"Go on," Dean said.

"I don't know. We were both, I don't know, charmed by the locket. Did you look inside? I'm sure you did - the picture? Oh, god, the lock of hair? Anyway, we took it. I," she closed her eyes, "put it on. I put it on and wore it home."

"You thought you were stealing it," Sam stated simply and she nodded.

"And?" Dean led her to the chair and gently persuaded her to sit back down. He squatted down beside her.

"That night he came."

"Came?" Dean's voice was quiet, but edged with something promising safety and protection. Sam watched as Dana practically leaned down into his brother's voice, the promise of it.

"Into my bedroom."

"Did he hurt you?" Dean's voice was rough now.

She shook her head. "No." Her voice was so low Sam had to learn forward to hear her. "He...he....I didn't know what he was, what was happening, exactly, I think I thought it was a dream, and we....you know...." Her cheeks were burning red and she brought up both hands to pat gently at them.

Dean looked over at Sam, both eyebrows shot up to just below his hairline, shaking his head an imperceptible shake, mouthing something that Sam assumed was an astonished question asking if they were both really hearing this woman tell them she had slept with a vengeful spirit.

"How," Dean's voice was pitched into more familiar territory now and Sam cringed at what he knew was coming next out of his brother's mouth, "how does that work, exactly?"

***

They decided not to split up, besides which, since the surfacing of the locket, the librarian had basically become a barnacle on Dean's rock-steady ship and Sam had to be firm and shoot his brother a severe look in order to get her to sit in the back seat of the Impala and not between them on the front bench.

Dean was driving them over to the newspaper offices and Sam's eyes were unfocused as he played over what they knew, what Dana had told them. The ghost, the vengeful spirit, had apparently been entertained in Dana's bed for several nights and she deduced that it was the locket that had brought him to her. In a well-intended and wildly generous girlfriend moment, she offered the locket to her room-mate. Shared her ghost lover with her best friend. Jeanette had become obsessed within just two nights and Dana had watched as the obsession became an overpowering addiction, consuming her friend, devouring her hours, robbing her of rationality. She had actually told Dana that she thought she was in love. With a ghost. The night Jeanette was injured; Dana had tried desperately to talk with her, only to find them embroiled in a truly surreal argument and Jeanette had left the house upset. Dana had been woken in the early morning hours by the police knocking on the front door with the devastating news. A cup of crappy coffee and a stale donut in the hospital cafeteria, hours in the waiting room, and the horror of life support, it all had combined to convince her that nothing was really real or as it would seem and she had found herself nodding and wondering when she would feel solid earth beneath her feet once more. And then he and Dean had arrived on the scene. He rubbed his eyes.

They broke into the alley door of the small newspaper building and made their way down into the basement where they found the archives. Sam got to work, irritated at the molasses-thick sound of Dean's voice intermingled with Dana's whispers as the two of them stood off to the side from where Sam had his head bent, reading, taking notes, sending them to fetch more fiche and clippings.

"Here's what I've got," he said, after forty minutes, twisting himself on the drafting stool away from the long table and they both straightened and paid attention. "His name was Richard Pracket. He was something of a loner, an Ichabod Crane if that paints a clearer picture, a teacher in the small schoolhouse downtown. In 1909, when the Library opened, he became a regular patron there, and apparently, fell in love with a librarian who may or may not have returned his affection and attentions. He's definitely the gentleman whose photo is in the locket and that's most probably his hair. There is a photograph of the librarian and in that photo she's wearing the locket. Call me a sentimentalist, but I think that would indicate they did have a reciprocal thing. At least for a while. Right? According to police reports, there was an altercation between Pracket and a Deputy Ratchling the night of Pracket's death. That altercation ended with Pracket falling from the roof of the library to his death. Three months to the day later, Sarah Ratchling, the librarian Pracket loved, jumped from that roof to her own death. Yes, Deputy Ratchling's sister. They shared the same house address, a spinster sister and a bachelor brother. They weren't kids, all of these people were in their late thirties. Then in 1960, a librarian named Carol Greer was believed to have jumped to her death from the roof after reportedly acting strangely for a week prior to her suicide. And it was her daughter, who is now secretary of this paper, who refused to let me into the paper's morgue this afternoon."

"Wow," Dean said.

"Clear as mud." Sam's voice had a tinge of frustrated disgust around the edges.

"It sounds pretty cut and dried to me, Sammy."

"I don't think so, Dean. But let's either get over to the cemetery and finish this or go over to the library and take a look at the box Dana and Jeanette found the locket inside."

Back outside, beside the Impala, Sam pulled Dean away, alone.

"We have to lose the librarian, Dean," he said quietly. "This sounds like a salt and burn and we might even be able to call it a wrap in the next few hours."

"You two aren't Federal Agents." Dana had approached them silently and was now standing in front of them, bristling bravado and hands on hips.

They both looked at her.

"And the FBI isn't interested or involved in any way. Right?"

Dean nodded and shook his head at the same time.

"But, you guys are the white hats. I can tell. And I want to help. I mean, really, I know this is on me." Dean tried to interrupt her but she reached out and took his arm. "Let me fix it or help or whatever, but please don't leave me alone and don't leave me out."

"Dude?" Dean asked him.

"Fine," Sam gave in. "We're going to the cemetery."

***

"It's a crypt, it's a crypt," Dean slapped a hand on the metal door bearing Richard Pracket's name, playfully lying his cheek against the bronze.

Sam nearly laughed out loud; Dean's relief contagious. His own blisters from the last grave digging were just now skinned over thinly. He nodded, smiling. Dana looked confused and that made him happy, as well. "Yeah, bro, it's a crypt. Here, give me that crowbar."

"I got it," Dean said and Sam wondered if he was showing off but when Dean shrugged out of his leather, he wondered no longer.

He made easy work of it, forearm muscles mesmerizing, and within a few minutes the bronze door was off and together they pulled Pracket's coffin out and laid it on the floor of the mausoleum. They knelt beside it and began to pry the lid.

"Uh, you're going to open that?" Dana asked.

Sam had decided to let Dean deal with the librarian and he methodically moved around the casket, loosening the cover. "Here we go, guys."

Dana covered her face with both hands, peeking between her fingers and Sam silently dismissed her with a single "girl" inside his head. Dean slid the lid off and the earthly remains of Richard Pracket in his Sundays lay exposed.

"What on earth...." Sam squatted beside the coffin, reaching out and gently, gently hooked his finger into the chain around Pracket's neck, tugging a locket out from between the buttons on his shirt.

"Oh!" Dana gasped.

Sam opened it, leaning closer, Dean holding the flashlight steady and all three bent to see the tintype of a woman on one side, a curling lock of blonde hair on the other. Sam snapped it shut and tucked it back beneath the corpse's shirt.

"Look," Dana whispered and pointed to an envelope slid beneath the folded hands. Dean nodded to her and she freed it, grave dust floating down like hourglass sand onto the faded black coat. "It's a letter."

The cement floor was cold beneath Sam's ass, the marble wall colder behind his back and his heart's blood cooling listening to Dana read, watching how she leaned into Dean, closer to the flashlight, the feminine curve of her body, the smallness of her beside his brother.

_My Dearest Richard, My beloved ~ My heart is broken, my mind unsettled. These past few days have been a nightmare from which I cannot seem to rouse myself. You are gone, dear one, and I am left bereft and grieved and cannot even don the widow's weeds to mourn you. Our secret engagement has undone me. William will not allow me to even wear a veil._

_I dare not trouble the sleep of the dead, but I am frozen with fear, a suspicion....oh, Richard, what happened that night? What role does William play in this Tragedy? What role must I own that it was because of my carelessness that he found the locket? I cannot think of it, I must not let my mind play tricks upon me. I may not ever know the Truth, and I believe sometimes looking away is the only way we carry on. But in my heart I fear that my eyes will look, my gaze will fall upon...._

_Know this, before the year is over they will bury me in the resting place of maidens who die before marrying those to whom they were engaged. Until then, I am now and forever yours, Sarah. _

***

"Something isn't adding up," Sam said, sitting heavily on the end of one of the motel queen beds. They had left the cemetery after returning Pracket's coffin to its resting place, taking Dana home and sitting with her until she fell asleep, promising to take the locket with them. Sam wanted an off switch for his brain, wanted to sleep and let the case incubate inside his head. He wanted to walk into a new day. He wanted someone to sit on the edge of his bed while he fell asleep.

"I think it makes sense, the guy was on the verge of ending a pretty long, dry spell of bachelorhood," Dean said with conviction. "He sounds like he was a lonely guy and then he meets his maker before that changes."

"Who, Dean? Pracket, the school teacher? Or the brother?" Sam snapped. "And if it wasn't for your freaky girlfriend telling us that she had ghost sex with the guy, I would even have Sarah Ratchling on the list of possibles."

Dean flashed him a leering grin and Sam rolled his eyes. "What are you suddenly so uptight about?"

Sam's words were measured. "Lonely? That kind of lonely is more of a psychosis, isn't it?"

A shrug. "I don't know. That sounds really cold, Sam. Lonely is lonely. I'm going with the schoolteacher on this one. The guy was desperate to be in a relationship."

"He was in a relationship. Desperation, as we've seen, can make for a seriously nasty spook. Whoever it was, he _was_ desperate and now he's paying for that desperation with cursed undeadness, it drove him to murder and it's holding him here."

"Yeah, maybe." Dean grew quiet, drumming his fingers on the motel desk. "Aren't we all kinda that desperate?"

"What do you mean? I don't feel desperate." Sam felt the knife's edge of his emotions cutting through his patience. His longings, his unspoken desires, his shame and his fear, beginning to bleed out of him. "What are you desperate for, Dean?" His voice broke into a whisper.

Another long silence stretched to a painful thinness between them. "I don't know. I mean, relationships. To be in relationship with another person like that. Twenty-four seven. You know, the works. I've never had that. Longest ever was Cassie, and I swear some sixth graders go steady longer than we did." He looked up and over at Sam. "You had that, with Jess."

It rang like an accusation inside Sam's ears. He nodded, breathing through the emotions slicing through him. "You're right. I did." He looked over his brother's shoulder, out the grimy single-pane, into the night-black parking lot, let his gaze travel over the sharp lines of Dean's car parked just beneath the yellow street light, not thinking of Jess or two years or their own apartment; domesticity, shopping for eggs, milk, bread, paying the electric bill. Not thinking of climbing in and out of the bed together, in and out of the shower, coffee, tea, cold beer in the fridge. Instead he looked at the Impala and thought about Dean. He laughed and the sound was not amusement. "You know, you do have that. Dean, you do. This is just like that."

Dean shook his head, a wary confusion in his eyes.

Sam stood, made a quick motion with his hand that encompassed himself and his brother, the car, the motel. "We've got a twenty-four seven thing here and it feels really just like that did. It's the same thing in so many ways."

Dean screwed his face up. "Except for the sex and the menstruation. Don't forget the chick stuff."

Sam didn't laugh. "I'm serious. It was about, oh, maybe three or four months after she and I moved into that place that it hit me. That sort of one-on-one thing? We had that. You and I had had that. We have it now. A relationship like Jess and I, well, it becomes a sibling thing after a while," he held up a hand, nodding, "except for the sex. I know, I know. Honest to God, Dean, you and I have the....relationship that Pracket wanted, we don't need to feel that kind of desperation because we've got everything we need right here."

Dean stood, his shoulders tense, fists at his side. "Not quite. Not quite."

Sam stepped closer. "Yes, quite. It's the same thing, Dean. It's just not," he paused, searching, "not domestic like you seem to be desperate for. I know all these years you thought it was me who wanted the," quoting fingers, "'picket fence, 2.5 kids, pregnant wife in the kitchen, a dog'. It's not me, it's you. I almost had that and I'm telling you, this is that but..." He trailed off, taking a deep breath and holding it to a point of pain inside his lungs. He turned away from a look he could not identify in his brother's eyes, turned away and walked to the window and looked out, seeing nothing but Dean in the reflection of the glass.

"Sam?" Dean's voice cracked and Sam closed his eyes.

He turned to face his brother. "This is what I want, Dean. I'm not desperate for anything unless that thing is about you. You being safe. You being happy. I would murder, have murdered, to protect that. You. And that's love. Wanting more for someone else than you want for yourself. The kind of love we can have, Dean. That kind of love, we do have."

Both men looked at one another. Sam stood willingly inside the moment that grew between them, watching Dean stand outside of it. He wondering, desperately, if he should step across, through, towards. This, then, was his desperation. Holding his breath and feeling as though the world had expanded and contracted, exploded and imploded. He wanted something so intangible, so out of reality that he needed Dean to want it to make it real.

Finally, Dean shrugged, muttered beneath his breath and walked into the bathroom shutting the door behind him. Sam listened to the shower being dialed on.

He pulled the window curtains shut, defeated. Shut out the night, shut out the world and the ways in which one was allowed to move inside that world. He shut himself into the room, just he and Dean, kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed fully dressed, the sound of his brother beneath the hot water a lullaby inside his ears.


	4. Chapter 4

Before even opening his eyes, Sam could sense it wasn't an early morning light falling on his face, brightening his lids. He took a deep breath, holding it for a moment, clearing out his lungs, reaching for the dark corners of his mind with sunlight, wanting to dust everything clean. He turned his head and caught a glimpse of the digital clock; they had, actually, managed to sleep in a few hours. He breathed out quietly, letting his gaze wander across to the other bed where Dean was still, obviously, peacefully asleep. He played with the thought of Dean sleeping peacefully, considered it and then discarded it. His brother was sleeping fitfully, but peace was something Dean hadn't really owned in any capacity the majority of his life. He might have known it until he was four and that, perhaps, might be why he had worked so hard to wrap Sam in peace, worked so hard to keep Sam in that place.

Dean had cast himself in the role of Sam's personal sin-eater, devouring all the fear and rage, swallowing it down, grimacing through the nausea and pain, to insure that Sam never had to experience any of it. And Sam had nearly retched his own guts out the first year he was at Stanford, he had had no idea how much Dean had padded his world with safety and love and peace until he was living without it.

He pressed his shoulders harder into the mattress and covered his face with both hands, breathing out, watching the play of light on the insides of his fingers. He refused to think about the case, he thought about Dean. He thought about the times in his life when he had felt at peace, and those times were from his childhood, from his youth, from the hours and days and years he'd spent beside his brother. He let his mind fall further back into the place he had once lived, a place of warmth and adoration. That adoration had become a fierce love, and now he could no longer be certain if that love was a curse or a blessing, a gift or a punishment, right or terribly terribly wrong. He was cold, inside and out, frozen with a loss, physical and emotional, that cut so deeply the self-inflicted wound had long ago bled out, it just ached and ached and ached.

He no longer wanted to be the younger brother to Dean's older brother, he had moved past that and it had cost them both nearly everything. But he remembered being wrapped inside Dean's arms, defining all the edges of Dean's life with the edges of his own, he remembered a childhood of peace regardless of safety. He wanted to return to that place, walk through the door only he and Dean could enter. He wanted to take Dean with him and he wanted both of them to go there as men.

***

"Dude, one of us is going to have to put that damned locket on. We can't ask Dana to do it. Too risky." Dean was upending the syrup pitcher over his stack of blueberry pancakes.

Sam was sipping a cup of bad house coffee, watching Dean over the rim. "I don't think she'd do it, even if we did ask."

"She's scared, Sam. Nothing wrong with that."

Sam shrugged. "I'm guessing that I'm the one who gets to play the girl."

Dean smirked. "If the necklace fits, wear it."

"Funny. What if it doesn't work? What if this spirit knows the difference between boys and girls?"

"You mean, what if ghosts aren't omnisexual or tri-sexual or whatever the hell it is we're all playing around with today?" Dean forked a mess of pancake, syrup and whipped butter into his mouth.

"Something like that," Sam muttered. "And what's with the "we", Dean?"

Another smirk and another bite of breakfast.

***

The three of them were back at the cemetery. They had located the Ratchling graves and were again, relieved to find another mausoleum, no digging required. Dana watched them work, pulling out Ratchling's coffin, opening it, leaning the lid against the wall.

"I still think we're going about this ass-backwards," Dean said, wiping his hands down the front of his jeans as he straightened to a stand.

"You think we should have both caskets open and salted?"

"Yeah, I do. I think this is a risk; it's going to take me...what? Five minutes to pull that box out, open it and salt and burn him if it does turn out to be Pracket? And that's not even to mention that I've got to run like hell to get over there."

Sam shrugged. "I know it's Ratchling, Dean. I just feel it."

"You're feeling it enough to take that ten minute ride on the ghost train it it's not?"

Sam caught his gaze and smiled. "Maybe not. Let's at least take the bronze back off. But I want you here not there."

Dana stepped between them. "Sam, why do you feel so strongly that it's the brother?"

He looked at her then down at the floor, the triangulation of the three of them standing in the cold flashlit mausoleum. "He didn't want to be alone. He didn't want her to love someone more than she loved him. They'd been together all their lives, he thought they only had one another. And I think he went crazy when he found the locket and got the story out of her. I think he used his position as a deputy to pursue Pracket. I think he pushed him or threw him off the roof. His spirit, his ghost, whatever, is still so violently opposed to this union that the locket calls him because he wants to stop it all over again."

"Okay," she said quietly, "but then why did his spirit get so," hesitation then an impressive moving forward into it, "involved with me, with Jeanette?"

Sam looked up at Dean, then out the open door of the crypt, into the dark night, white tombstones flashing like fireflies across the black expanse. "Maybe in death he can give into desires he wasn't able to fulfill in life? I don't know."

"A lot of unanswered questions," she said softly.

"Sometimes that's just the way it works out. Not all the riddles get solved. Life's like that, so why not death, too? But we do have some of the answers and I'm going with my own feeling on this one."

"Enough chit-chat. Sam, if you think it's Ratchling, I'll back you on it. But I am going to go over to Pracket's crypt and unloose that bronze."

Sam nodded and watched as Dean jogged out the door and Dana followed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace, the locket lying in his open hand, upper lip pulled tight between his teeth.

***

_"Let me, let me, please, Dean."_

_"Sammy, you know I can't. You know we can't. Don't put this on me."_

_"You can, I can. Who says we can't have something we both want? Who says? We can."_

_"Sam."_

***

"Sam?" Dean looked at him closely. "You ready?"

"Yeah." Sam walked to the center of the small marble room. Dean and Dana moved to one edge and Sam noticed how Dean put himself slightly in front of her, pressing her towards the open door behind them. He smiled at his brother, gave him a thumb's up sign and slipped the necklace over his head.

Almost bodily, William Ratchling's ghost rose from his bones, his vacant gaze locked to the figure of Sam. With a creaking step, the ghost wrenched one foot, then the other, out of his coffin, out of his dried and dusty bones and rolled his head back on his shoulders, cracked his filmy knuckles, one fist inside the other. He took a long step towards Sam and Dean crouched and moved along the edge of the wall towards the open coffin.

Sam stood, watching the slow approach. "Bring it," he whispered and without warning the ghost moved as though he were liquid fire, in front of Sam before anyone could see him move.

Dana screamed. Ratchling's head swiveled and the ghost took in the figure of the girl, looked back at Sam and unspooled himself into grey tendrils, moving through and around Sam, towards Dana. She screamed again and fled out the door and into the cemetery, Ratchling fast on her heel.

"Dammit!" Dean shouted from the corner, raining gasoline down on the corpse, the can in one hand, his zippo in the other. With a quick movement, he snapped the lighter open and spun it on his leg. It didn't light and in that moment Sam felt two impossibly strong hands wrapping around his neck from behind and he was hauled over backwards onto the floor, Ratchling's ghost menacing him from above before dropping to his knees and reaching for the locket.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, twisting himself out from under the ghost, scrabbling across the floor towards his brother. Dean tossed the empty can behind him, spun the zippo one more time on his thigh, then tossed the flaming lighter into the coffin and reached down for Sam's hand, pulling him to his feet. Ratchling was a cloud of fury around the two of them, flames roaring out of his coffin, the ghost took another step towards them, hands stretched out, face contorted, and he went down to his knees beside the wooden box. Like water on fire, he fell forward, onto the burning body, into the burning box, ashes to ashes. Dust.

Dean pulled Sam hard and fast against him, a quick arm around his shoulders, whispered nonsense words against his neck, then let him go. Sam staggered from the release and pulled the necklace over his head. Dean reached for it.

"No. We can't burn it, Dean. It didn't belong to him."

A small sound at the door pulled their attention to it and Dana stood there, dirty and disheveled. "Is he? Did you? Did it work?"

"Yes and yes and yes."

She collapsed against the wall, sliding down to a squat, shoulders shaking, she put her head in her hands.

"Here," Sam said, reaching for the crowbar on the floor. "I'm putting this back where it belongs." He walked a few steps over to the bronze drawer plaque that read simply, "Sarah Ratchling" and began prying at the corner. Dean hunkered down beside Dana, whispering words Sam couldn't hear, didn't want to hear. After a few, long moments he had the plaque off. He reached deep into the vault and laid the necklace and locket on top of the casket. He began prising the bronze back into place. Beside him, Dean was doing the same with the other plaque. On the floor, a pile of grey ash smouldered.

***

"That feels good." Dean said, punching the air.

Dana beamed at him and Sam turned away, beginning the short trek to the car. The two caught up with him, Dean on one side and the girl beside him.

"What's wrong, Sam?" Dean's voice was finally serious, concerned. "Are we missing something? Leaving a loose end untied?"

Sam kept walking, reaching the car, popping the trunk lid, stowing gear, tossing flash lights and weapons, the empty salt bags. He reached up and brought the deck lid down with both hands, rested his forehead on it, frustrated.

"Sam?"

"Dean. It does feel good to finish with Ratchling, I agree. But, there's all this brokenness still left, these lives that aren't going to be able to be fixed. That salt and burn doesn't pull the plug on that poor girl in the hospital. Putting this guy to rest doesn't help that secretary at the paper who believes her mother killed herself, jumped off the roof when she was a kid. That woman will never know that the last thing her mother wanted to do was leave her, die like that, on the sidewalk."

Dean was quiet, watching him under a serious brow, lips pressed tightly together and Sam didn't want to settle more weight on his brother's shoulders, didn't want to be the one to introduce doubt or regret. "Never mind. It's all good. Really." Sam reached out and gave Dean a gentle shake, hand fast on his arm. He smiled. "It's just me being oversensitive. Let's get out of here. Let the dead rest. Finally."

A moment held itself between them, and then Dean's face broke into a wide grin.

***

"You guys gotta take off right now? Maybe we could, you know, do something? You could let me show my appreciation." Her voice was pitched into a low, velvet place and Sam squirmed. He knew exactly where this was heading and sure enough, Dean smiled, too broadly, across at her.

"Guess we don't really have to take off this second. No. What did you have in mind?"

***

He wasn't surprised she preferred Dean. He preferred Dean. Slowly but steadily, they both moved towards a kind of sexual worship of Dean. She was able to worship his body, his lips, his hands, legs, the inside of his elbows. Sam desperately wanted to suck broken and bruised kisses into the soft hinges of his brother's elbows. Instead he had to close his eyes and sate himself on Dean's moaning. He'd had no idea Dean was so unreserved, so vocal, and listening to his brother's voice, pitched low, growling approval, groaning through touch and taste, was driving him crazy in ways he could not have ever imagined possible. He watched and listened, hungrily, as Dean responded to Dana's body, her hands, and her mouth.

They were both on their backs in her big brass bed with Dana kneeling above them, between them. Sam pushed his shoulder up hard against Dean's arm, moving closer, needing to feel the hot male flesh touching his own. He wanted Dean's skin beneath his fingers, beneath his tongue. He very nearly turned his face into Dean's bicep, mouth already gaping open like a newborn, to suckle at his brother's skin, feel the muscle and sinew between his teeth. But instead, he reached up with both hands for the girl and pulled her head down and held her fast while he kissed her and she did kiss him back, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had the tip of her index finger inside Dean's mouth, his eyes closed. Sam released her and she leaned up on her hands and knees, moving herself over Dean, pressing him back into the mattress, straddling his hips, finding his mouth, lowering onto him with the help of his fisted grip and Sam clambered off the bed. He stood watching them, breathing hard, and then, on an obvious hunch, pulled open the drawer of her bedside table and fished out a bottle of lube. He reached for the condoms she'd scattered across the top of the table. He popped the cap and upended it into his hand, stroking himself, still watching Dean. His slitted eyes, cupping both of her perfect breasts, her head thrown back, her fingers fast around Dean's wrists.

Sam kneeled onto the bed, moving behind her, swinging one leg over Dean's knees, straddling his thighs, settling himself, reaching out for her hips and she canted forward, opening herself to him and with slow precision, holding his breath to match his brother's strokes, he was inside. She moaned sweetly and he leaned down and bit the muscle tense and tight across her shoulder.

And then Dean's hands were over his own, holding fast, urging the girl.

Sam pressed the heels of his palms down hard into her hips, lifting and lacing his fingers through Dean's fingers, an answering pressure, he wasn't going to let go and Dean wasn't pulling away. Suddenly Dean moaned, a crazy feral sound and Sam pressed forward again, watching his brother's face over her shoulder. He leaned backwards, pulling Dean's hands off her hips, dragging his arms out straight and Dean responded, with a sudden intuition so perfect it robbed Sam of breath and he missed a stroke; Dean pressed back, arms tense, holding tight to Sam's hands, letting him use his arms, his strength to leverage himself into the act. Dean opened his eyes, looking straight up at him, sucking his lower lip beneath his front teeth. Beneath Sam's ass, he felt Dean's thighs tense and he jacked his hips forward, hard, once, twice, and with a sensation akin to dream-falling, tumbling inside his head, his eyes rolling back beneath his lids, lips parsing off his teeth, he came, fisting his hands around Dean's grip. Inside his chest, his heart was beating with a ferocious tempo, unlike anything he'd ever experienced, the rapidity of it against his lungs, against his ribs, making him strangely and gloriously light-headed. He watched as Dean reached his own peak, gazes locked, hand in hand. Slowly they released each other, Sam's knuckles seared as though branded.

Between them, the girl shuddered and began to lower herself onto Dean. Guilt flashed quickly through Sam as he realized he had no idea whether she had come or not and that he had stopped considering her altogether at some point. With a quick hand on his softening cock, feeling Dean's length with the tips of his fingers; Sam eased her down so that her shoulder hit the mattress. He pulled out, brought both hands up around her waist and gently pressed her aside, into the crook of Dean's arm, kneeling up to let her pull her legs out from beneath him.

And he lowered his own body onto his brother. Both long arms snaking beneath Dean's shoulders, all the way around until he was cupping each shoulder ball, holding on with a gentle, but insistent strength, a will, and he pressed his mouth against his brother's face and whispered his name into his ear. And then he could feel Dean shaking his arm loose from beneath the girl and suddenly he was in his brother's embrace, tight, safe.

Sam decided, quite simply, he just was not going to let go.

***

It was Dean who kissed her goodbye, leaning over the bed, pressing his lips to hers quickly, tucking the sheet and blanket down around her chin, her shoulder. "Thanks, Dana. For everything."

"You leaving?" she whispered, voice husky.

"Yeah. We gotta hit the road."

"What time is it?"

"Let's see, it's just about three. Go back to sleep, okay? Be good. We'll lock the front door. And no more ghost sex, got me?"

"Get gone."

"Done."

Sam turned out of the bedroom door and walked quickly through the dark and silent house. Dean was a step behind him, they paused to lock the front door and then they were standing on the front stoop, the Impala waiting at the curb, glistening in the grey moonlight. They stepped off the stoop and followed the cement walkway down to the car. Dean stopped, looking up into the sky, Sam stood beside him, watching him from beneath his lashes.

"Helluva moon tonight." Dean's voice was quiet.

"Dean...."

"Not yet, Sammy." Dean shook his head, holding his hand up between them.

"Yet, Dean." Sam reached across and took Dean's hand inside his own. With his other hand, he reached up to the back of Dean's neck, stepping into the distance between them. He slipped Dean's arm behind his back, pressing their bodies against one another, pushing Dean until he had him sandwiched between the Impala and his long body.

Dean's eyes were wide open, filled with a vulnerability that gave Sam pause; his heart beating in longing, his ribs aching to contain everything he felt, everything he wanted.

"It's okay," he whispered and Dean nodded, a slight tremble in his upper lip and Sam felt his heart nearly break. He brought his free hand up to Dean's face and with long, careful fingers he brushed across his brother's brow, smoothing out the worry, the fear, tapping gently down over Dean's eyelids, urging him to close his eyes and Dean did. His eyelashes fluttering slightly and Sam felt he had the most precious, fragile thing in the entire world beneath his hand. Slowly, slowly, slowly he lowered his mouth to Dean's lips and kissed him. Gentle then hard. Deeply and possessively, but most of all with love.

With love.

Love.


End file.
